


A Handful of Violets

by nimery



Series: Old Magic [1]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Curse Breaking, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27111739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimery/pseuds/nimery
Summary: Whale Island has long been cursed by a plague of the land. Wanting to experience the world that his great grandmother has always told him about, Gon decides that he wants to find a cure. He heads off to the mainland and begins his search, along the way, meeting some human and nonhuman allies.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Old Magic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978909
Kudos: 6





	A Handful of Violets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CielPhantomhive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CielPhantomhive/gifts).



> This one is for CielPhantomhive because she was literally in the room with me while I plotted it. She's to thank for any logic this story has to it.

His great grandmother used to tell stories about the island before the rot settled in. She hadn’t been alive when the land was healthy, but her parents had been. She recalled growing up to stories of white birch trees with rich green leaves and tall oaks unconsumed by insects and sickness. She had regaled Mito and Ging, when they were young and growing, with the same tales. And when Ging was old enough, he left to see such things with his own eyes in distant, untainted lands.

From his birth until his fourteenth year, Gon had heard about the waters of the island running clear, the grasses green, and the winds crisp and refreshing. Sitting out on the cliffs, he found it easier to imagine. The ocean was untouched by whatever illness plagued Whale Island; the blue waves and sea birds were a vision of what could be.

That morning, breakfast was of fish and imported rice—it was, perhaps, a good thing that the predominant food on the island before the illness settled in was fish. The island could hardly sustain agriculture, as it was now, but when it began to rot, they hadn’t lost all that much in terms of trade-able goods. The economy hadn’t suffered much.

Mito, great grandmother, and Gon were eating together, three clay plates and bowls circled on the round table. The room was lit by the harsh rays of the early morning sun seeping in from between the flaps of the curtains. Mito would eat slowly, picking at her food with her fork, while grandmother would speak in between bites.

“I think,” Gon spoke up, setting his fork down on the table and looking at the other two. “I think I want to see how Whale Island used to be.”

“Gon, you’re—” Mito started, but great grandmother raised a hand to halt her.

“Leave the island?” The older woman said, leaning forward on tented hands. Gon wasn’t a child, that was true, but he wasn’t an adult either. He still existed in that bizarre middle ground between the two, that much was made obvious by his stretched out limbs and face that hadn’t yet grown into itself yet. But he was almost there, at seventeen. And because he was young, but still old enough to begin to grasp what he wanted, great grandmother would wave him goodbye, if he chose that. Mito, on the other hand, had a pinched look on her face. Her mind, it seemed, was thinking of other things: other people and other times.

“Not forever,” Gon said, his gaze dropping down to the food on his plate. “But there has to be some way to fix what’s wrong, and I know we won’t find it here. It may be that we can’t find anything, but it shouldn’t be for lack of trying.”

Mito was silent, unhappy with his decision, but perhaps satisfied in the knowledge that he would one day return to them, regardless of the success of his quest. What mattered most to her was that he wouldn’t leave them forever.

“You’ll need a boat,” great grandmother said, before eating some of her fish. “To cross over to the mainland. I don’t know if any of the fishing ships will take you, but Mito—didn’t you and Ging have a boat that you used to take around the island? The mainland isn’t far enough that something so small would be a problem.”

Mito placed her cheek on her hand, curling an arm around her chest. “We do. Down by the cliffs. But we’d pulled it onto shore so long ago, I don’t know if it’s seaworthy, the way it is now.” She tapped her plate with her fork. “After breakfast, though, I’ll take you to it, and we can see.”

Gon grinned, a bright shining thing, full of teeth, before he began to dig into his breakfast with a new fervor.

* * *

The boat was, as Mito had expected of it, nearly buried in the dirt of seasons come and gone, but, as Gon had dared to hope, there were no holes in it. The two were able to exhume it from the shore and pull it out from the water after excavation. Brushing away the remaining dusting of dirt, salt, and sand, they left the boat to rest on the shore while Gon finished packing what he believed he would need.

Some stable food, a handful of coins, and a bedroll—all of which were wrapped up and tucked away in a bag that he slung over his shoulder.

Great grandmother approached him first, wrapping her small arms around him as far as they would go. She whispered a few words of loving goodbye before Mito took her place. Her farewell was demure—a hand gently placed on the young man’s head and their foreheads pressed together for a brief moment before she pulled away, meeting his beaming grin with something more reserved.

“Be careful,” she said. “And please. Make sure you come back to us.”

That was a promise that Gon eagerly made, his head bobbing as he grasped her hands and pressed the promise into her bones. He would return, and while he intended to return with something to heal the aching land beneath their feet, he knew better than to risk Mito’s fury—or worse, her tears—on sacrificing himself for that.

With that, he released her and waved goodbye, heading off toward the small boat waiting for him at the bottom of the cliff. When there, he tossed his bag into it and climbed in himself. He knew to sail out, towards the horizon as it was now. Behind him, the sun hung over Whale Island, the glaring crisp of just-before-noon seeped into the back of his neck.

He pushed the boat out from the shore, into the water, and boarded when it was deep enough. The ocean bucked him, but he didn’t capsize. He seized one of the oars and dug into the waves, propelling himself forward into the blue.

* * *

Gon spotted the green lip of healthy land after nearly a day of rowing. The sun was already on its course ahead of him, dyeing the sky a warm and glorious orange. Gon waited until he had reached nearly shallow water before slipping out of the boat and pulling it the rest of the way to shore. The sand beneath his shoes crunched and relented, a wonderful yellow, tan, and brown mixed in equal measure and not greyed into a half-hardened sludge. Above him, trees swayed slightly as a breeze picked up over the shore. The ocean rippled invitingly as it was pushed forward by tide and wind alike.

Rocks, grey but with layers of purple and silver and white, stood at the height of the beach, where the sand shifted into sweet-smelling stalks of tall yellow grass. Thick and rich with water and nutrients pulled from the soil. The grass stretched on in a vast field toward a lining of trees beyond.

Pulling his bag from the boat and slinging it over his shoulder, Gon walked slowly up the beach, letting the grains hinder his movement as he walked up the slight incline toward the fields of grass. The sand rustled over the tops and bottoms of his shoes, and he reveled in the sound of it crashing down and falling back onto the beach. The soft shushing and crunching of it filled his ears as he walked until ground beneath him hardened into a rich, sweet-smelling dirt and the grass began to tickle at his arms, slipping against and beneath his sleeves as he walked forward.

He took in the world around him again, now at a higher vantage point, in order to see some kind of trace of civilization. Beyond the distant boundary of trees, he could see an inviting-looking blue smoke hovering into the sky. If he took a deep breath, he could smell iron and stone, wood and salt coming from the direction of the smoke. Gon hoisted his bag on his shoulder and took off through the grass, the excitement of seeing more of the world spurring his feet to move faster.

As he walked, the blue sky tucked itself behind the leaves of the trees, and Gon broke into the shadows of the woods. It wasn’t intimidating, not like the forests back on Whale Island, with their grey wood and limp branches that sometimes reached so far down they tickled the back of your neck, leaving a sticky sap in their wake; instead, it felt enlivening. The warm brown towns of the trees, the trickles of sunlight that broke through their bows and left a golden hue on the ground. He could even hear wildlife scampering about in the underbrush excitedly, and nuts falling down from the trees with hollow clunks.

The air was rich and warm and felt like it could have been home to him, like it should have been. Gon continued to follow the scent of the city and found, on the other side of the trees, a town, about the size of Whale Island’s harbor area. Under the sun, people walked about, talking in bright voices and carrying on with their daily lives. Gon didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know who he might be able to talk to about a sickness of the land—if he should ask a farmer or a magician. Farmer, for the earth, and magician since the life of the soil rotting away was either causable or solvable by magic.

The answer came to him in a glint of the sun off metal, a sign swaying as a breeze ushered in. An alchemist’s shop sat in the midst of the midday muddle, and Gon figured it would be a good place to start. He’d read about alchemists, of course. They knew of both plants _and_ magic. Gon’s grip tightened on his bag, and he marched toward the alchemy shop. Plants, from the outside, seemed to love this place. They curled against the building, either an embrace or a protective shield for it. A leaf set behind a staff made the sign and glinted—copper metal set against a rich, dark wood. The roof hung low over a wide window made of blue glass, through which Gon couldn’t see inside. He pushed the door open and was greeted by a warm, but crowded space.

The sun shone blue through the windows, and lit up against plants set about in vases and hanging from the ceiling in baskets. Shelves of drawers lined the walls and were labeled with pictures and drawings of what they contained. What was not covered in plants was covered in books, ranging from newer volumes to older, they had entire walls of their own to fill. At the back of it all was a dark-haired man seated at a desk, flipping through one of the books. He was focused, a hand placed delicately on his chin as he turned the page. His hair was brushed out of his face, where small reading spectacles sat on the bridge of his nose, and his clothes were a little nice for just sitting in the shop, but the look felt fitting to him.

Gon stepped into the room and cleared his throat, so the man would notice him. His focus was broken slowly, but a ribbon was slipped between the pages and the book closed. The man looked up at Gon and offered a kind smile.

“Welcome. Feel free to look around,” he said. “I’m here if you have any specific requests, but you should be able to find what you need easily.” With that, he turned back to his book.

Gon looked around himself with narrowed eyes, scanning what he could of the herbs that were available in the shop. He was hoping, perhaps, some kind of divine inspiration would strike at him, and he would be able to somehow know exactly what he needed to cure Whale Island. Alas, no such thing occurred, so after a brief look around to see what the man carried, Gon made his way over to the desk.

“I do have a question for you,” he said, and the man looked up easily.

“Of course.” The book was now set completely to the side as the man gave Gon his full attention. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m not sure. I need something that will cure illness, but it’s the… the ground that’s sick.” Gon tried to illustrate what the situation was by dipping his hands together in the air in front of him, as though he were planting a flower or swimming. He doubted it made the situation any clearer, but sometimes it was just easier to move one’s hands while speaking.

The man tapped his finger against his chin while he thought. “Huh,” he said. “Do you know why it’s sick? Bugs?”

“My great grandma always said that it was magic. That a long time ago, someone came along and cursed the island. I’m trying to see if I can’t fix it.”

“A curse, eh?”

“Yessir. A curse.”

The man stood from the desk, making his way across the room to the largest shelf of books, on the far wall. He scanned through them for a moment. “Do you have any clues about who might have cast this curse? Or how they did it?”

Gon shook his head. “No. Only that a wizard came to the island and—”

“Cursed it.”

“Yes.”

The man pulled a book from the shelf and skimmed through it briefly. “Have you tried anything to break it before now?” The man asked. “And I mean ‘you’ generally, not you specifically.”

“When my great grandmother was younger, they tried some blessings from local priests and the like, but none of that worked.”

The man grumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “ _well, yeah, it’s a curse_ ,” but Gon didn’t say anything about it. He waited for the man to finish searching through his books for an answer.

“How would you describe the impact on the land?”

Gon thought about this for a moment. “The ground is… hard. The soil dried up, but we can’t water it because it doesn’t—hm—it isn’t really soil anymore. It’s just clumped up dust. All the trees that were there before are still around, but they’re dead. Very dead. They’re brittle and bare. Great grandma said they used to sprout leaves during the warm months, but they don’t do that anymore. Most of the water on the island is salt. There’s one lake close to the village that’s still fresh and safe to drink, but that’s it.

“Mostly, I just want to see what it used to be like before. I want Aunt Mito and great grandma to see it too. For everyone on the island.” Gon frowned as he finished his description. Thinking back to home, and thinking of how this land looked when he arrived, had left his mood a little soured.

The man hummed in thought and turned to a page in the book.

“Ah,” he said, shortly.

“What?”

“Well, to break that there’s just about one medicine strong enough to do the trick. Unfortunately, no one knows much about it, only that it’s up in the Shaded Mountains, and that’s the Mitene Clan’s territory.”

Gon blinked in confusion. “The what?”

The man waved the question away. “It’s one of the old clans that live around here. Let’s see, there’s Netero, Zoldyck, Morou, Kurta, Ryoudan, and Mitene. Beasts that you can find around these parts. The Mitene Clan is up on the Shaded Mountains where just about the strongest medicinal plant known to man can be found. They’re also the only ones that know how to use it—ancient wisdom and all that. So if you want to be able to cure your island, kid, you’ll have to take it up with them.”

“Oh, my name’s Gon. And what do you mean by beasts?”

The man slid the book back onto the shelf and took a moment to consider Gon. “Call me Leorio. And by beasts, I mean. Hm.” He thought over his words. “Well, not many people have seen the clans, but I’ve heard tell that the Netero Clan are up in the Jeweled Crests. That’s where the crystalline caves are, magical hotspots, I tell you. I’ve heard they can either appear as people or as phoenixes.”

“Huh,” Gon nodded. “Cool.”

“To get to the Shaded Mountains, you’ll have to get through the Gradine Forest just beyond here,” Leorio gestured to the door of the shop, and ostensibly to the town just outside. “It’s a bit dangerous to get through them considering all the, uh, creatures and spirits and stuff.” He tightened his mouth into a line and thought for a moment, before glancing around him. He mumbled a few things to himself, from which Gon picked up ‘ _need anyway_ ’ and ‘ _barely go alone_.’ Then Leorio sighed and crossed his arms in front of himself, leaning this way and that as he gathered his thoughts.

“That’s settled then,” he said. “I’ll take you as far as I can. I need to go out and get some more alfer leaf anyway.”

“Alfer leaf?” Gon asked as Leorio began hustling around, packing his own things to be ready for a trip into the forest.

“It’s used in remedies against a type of flu that can get nasty here in the winter. Might as well stock up while I know it’s in season, maybe see what else useful I can get.”

Gon grinned, the thought of a companion making the journey weigh less on his shoulders. “Great! And maybe you could tell me more things! Like about plants, or about the clans? Are there any clans in the forest?”

Leorio let out a guffaw that would have startled more sensitive ears. “You bet there are clans in the forest! That’s their playground, I’d say. We’d best be on our guard when we’re out there and be very careful what we do. They can get protective of their lands and can be downright spiteful and ruthless.” As he spoke, he pulled a now-packed bag over his shoulder, crossing over his body. “We wouldn’t even have to do anything wrong for some of them, just set foot on their turf.” He turned to Gon and leveled him a serious look. “Just keep that in mind as we head out. Stick to the path, and nothing’s going to come after you.”

Gon nodded in equal seriousness.

“Will do,” he agreed, already wondering what it would be like to meet one of these clans.

* * *

Leorio left a note hanging on the wall of the shop as he and Gon left. Gon didn’t read all of it, but it did state that the shop would be closed for a few days so Leorio could collect supplies. After locking the door, the two were able to head out. Gon gripped the straps of his bag as the excitement of the journey washed over him.

As the sun drifted over him and the clockwork coil of the town at this hour, Gon felt the swell of emotion in his chest as he realized that he was taking the first few steps towards bringing the world he saw out here to the people he loved back on Whale Island. He couldn’t contain his smile, which then infected Leorio, who couldn’t help the slight tremble and rise of his own mouth upon seeing Gon.

“Okay,” Leorio said. “Off we go.”

Their destination, the Gradine Forest, as Leorio had called it, was a mass of trees and the dark of sun blotted out by thick wood. The trees were tall, but not tall enough that in the distance they couldn’t see the misty peaks of the Shaded Mountain. Even obstructed as its mass was by the dark pines of the forest, the mountain was a proud thing where it stood.

Gon could barely contain his gasp at the wonder of it, and Leorio could barely contain his laugh at Gon’s amazement.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Leorio said. “I think it’s rather lovely in the forest itself too.”

Gon nodded as he followed Leorio down the path into the trees, the darkness swallowing them up as they entered.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](https://yeskel.tumblr.com).


End file.
